[Birdtalk] Promontory Raptors

[Betsy_Beneke at fws.gov]

Hi All,

Bridget Olson and I conducted a Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey on Friday,
January 11.  We keep track of all raptors we see, as well as ravens and
magpies.  Our route begins near Corinne, at the Bear River Bridge, then
proceeds out to the Promontory Road, going 55 miles - all the way around
Promontory Point to the CWMU gate.  Here's our tally of birds:

2    Bald eagle (one adult in nest tree, one immature bird nearby)
5    Golden eagle
21  Northern Harrier (down quite a bit from the past two years surveys)
1    Cooper's Hawk
6    Red-tailed Hawk
32  Rough-legged Hawks (wow - they were all over the place, plumages from
dark to light - fun to compare them all)
8    Loggerhead shrike
8    American kestrel
4    Prairie falcon
51  Common Raven
51  Black-billed Magpie

There was a pair of great-horned owls sitting shoulder to shoulder in a
tree at Thiokol Ranch.  And in a marsh that was completely open, about a
mile before Thiokol Ranch, we counted approximately 2000 mallards - they
were packed into this small marsh.  Actually, probably 99.9% were mallards
with common goldeneye, pintail, gadwall and red-breasted merganser making
up the difference.  There was a great blue heron standing on the dike there
too.

We also saw what I thought was an interesting thing - a large flock of
birds landed on the road in front of us at one point, and I got all excited
because only half of the flock were obviously horned larks - the other
birds were browner.  Longspurs?  No!  House finches.  They were flying
around  in a flock with the horned larks, twisting and turning the same
way, picking grit, feeding on weed seeds.  I've never seen house finches
hanging out and acting like horned larks before.

Other songbirds we noted were red-winged blackbirds, white-crowned, song
and American tree sparrows, juncos, and of course, starlings.  I don't
think we saw one single house sparrow during the whole trip, which was odd
- odd/good.

Was fun to get out of the office for a day - no planning, budgets or
writing for a few hours!

Betsy Beneke
Outdoor Recreation Planner
Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge
2155 West Forest Street
Brigham City UT  84302
http://bearriver.fws.gov